Killer App: How Microsoft Can De-Rail Google's Unstoppable Freight Train for a Few Million Dollars. It's Right Under Their Nose.
Jan. 18, 2010
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. -- George Orwell
Things that should be obvious rarely are. A case in point.....
Google's revenue model rests on click-through link ads posted on Web pages. Take away these ads, and Google's business model dies.
A tiny software company has just taken away these ads, technologically speaking. It offers a free ad-on for your toolbar that lets you remove all Web page ads with one mouse click. It's called Readability.
I have been using this ad-on for two weeks. I have not seen any Google ads in two weeks. I have not seen any ads on any page. "Free at last! Free at last! Thank Readability, I'm free at last!"
I read on-screen much faster than before. The pages are not cluttered with ads.
Another major benefit: it converts multi-page articles into one-page articles, making it much easier to read. You also miss all the ads that were on the following pages.
Try Readability for yourself: //www.garynorth.com/public/5961.cfm
If Microsoft bought the rights to this product, or -- if Google buys the company first to suppress the product -- it designs something comparable, Microsoft could make it available as a button on Internet Explorer. It would appear on the IE toolbar. Benefit: Remove those annoying on-screen ads with the click of a button.
What could Google do to counter this? Try to persuade users how much they enjoy reading Google ads rather than text? How great Google ad clutter looks on-screen?
The software works. It's not a dream. It's here. I have escaped Google's ads. I am now a free rider on Google's search engine. Thanks, Google!
Yes, there can be ads stuck on YouTube videos. But this revenue model is not working. Google is said to be losing $470 million a year with YouTube.
Is anyone in a decision-making capacity at Microsoft sufficiently entrepreneurial to see this opportunity? It's right under his nose.
MICROSOFT'S FAILED RESPONSES TO GOOGLE
There is a battle for users' loyalty going on. Google is beating Microsoft.
For a brief introduction to this battle, see a few minutes of Dan Roam's presentation of the two strategies. He gave this speech at a seminar for Google staffers. He shows pictorially what Google's strategy is and what Microsoft has done -- without success -- to counter it. You can see this on YouTube. The presentation begins at 24 minutes. click here.
Microsoft tries one money-losing response after another. They all involve getting people to change their habits from Google to the latest project. Every attempt has failed, because the company is trying to do the improbable: change a beneficial habit to an unknown new habit that has a high re-learning curve. No company has that large an advertising budget, not even Microsoft.
Microsoft's solution is one mouse click away -- a button on a re-designed IE toolbar.
All Microsoft has to do is to provide a button to allow people to get what they want: ad-free on-screen reading. Microsoft does not have to change anyone's sense of priorities. It merely has to provide a simple digital option to let people achieve a major goal in one click. The learning curve? Click a button.
People will change a habit very fast if there is a clear benefit associated with the new habit, when coupled with a major liability associated with the old habit. The old habit is this: "Do nothing and be forced read pages that are cluttered with distracting ads."
The marketing strategy of filling pages with ads is doomed, technologically speaking. All it will take is a change in Web surfers' reading habits. Click one button on the IE toolbar. Presto: no more ads.
Readability is the equivalent of low-fat, low-calorie, nutritious french fries that taste really great. "Will you have fries with that?" Who wouldn't?
I re-learned my viewing habits in one hour. How long will it take you?
Who would use any other browser if Internet Explorer had such a button? Firefox would have to put one on, too, just to compete. Google Chrome would die. Google would not dare to put an ad-killer button on Chrome.
I have designed a button for Microsoft, if the company wants to buy it from me. The button has the words Ads on it. Superimposed over this word is the universally recognized no slash.
Do you think this button would appeal to Web surfers? Would it appeal to you?
THE BIGGER THEY ARE
Google's revenue model rests on the absence of a few lines of code in a browser.
On January 13, 2010, Google's market capitalization was $184 billion. A year after the release of Internet Explorer 9 (development project name: "Short Google"), Google's market cap could easily be half that figure.
Anyone who invests in digits places his capital on the line. "Digits giveth, and digits taketh away. Blessed be the name of digits."
A killer app? Symbolically, think G for Goliath. The button would be a capital G with a no slash.
Admittedly, I do have a problem of thinking of Microsoft as defenseless little David.